This invention relates to an apparatus and a method for rewinding reusable bandages such as gauze, elastic compression bandages and cotton bandages, which are commonly found in the medical and sports professions.
Hospital and medical personnel typically wind and rewind great numbers of reusable bandages. Particular individuals, with certain medical conditions such as lymphedema, have a great need for an easy way to rewind the bandages that must be wound and unwound many times every day in accordance with the treatment of their disease. Various devices have been developed to wind and rewind bandages into rolls; however, each of these devices has shortcomings which challenge people who are lacking dexterity due to illness. One problem with previously known bandage winding devices is that they are too large in size and too heavy for a typical patient to conveniently use. Such large devices are not capable of being hand-held, which is an important feature and object of the present invention. Thus, light weight is also an important feature of the present invention.
Previously known devices tend to be more expensive to manufacture than the present invention, which uses a minimum of costly parts. Therefore, most any patient who desired to own the present invention could easily do so.
Another important object of the present invention is that it eliminates the need to thread the starting end of a bandage onto a shaft prior to winding of the bandage. In the art, a threading structure on a shaft is usually required, such as a hole, to thread the leading edge of the bandage into prior to winding. In contrast, the present invention uses two alternative embodiments. In the first embodiment, a spool weakly binds the leading edge of the bandage to the shaft, allowing the bandage to be wrapped upon itself as the shaft rotates, while also permitting the rolled bandage to be removed from the shaft upon completion of wrapping. Such a spool is made of material which has a coefficient of static friction which is sufficient to weakly bind the leading edge of the bandage to the spool to initiate wrapping without permanently binding the bandage to the spool. Alternatively, the spool may be made of material which has negligible binding properties, and the user will manually tuck the leading edge of the bandage around the spool to form a first wrap, whereupon the bandage winding device may be energized.
Additional objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description that follows, and in part will become apparent from the description regarding what can be learned by the practice of the invention. The advantages of the present invention can be realized and obtained by the device particularly pointed out in the claims.